Some Republican-led states say they they will block Justice Department’s election monitors from going inside polling places on Election Day, pushing back on federal authorities’ decades-long practice of watching for violations of federal voting laws.
How the hell is this not “Roll up with the FBI/National Guard/Whoever and take the needed measures to get the DOJ observers into the polling station” level shenanigans?
Since 1965, federal officials have sent about 32,000 observers to jurisdictions with histories of harassing minority voters or even outright denying them access to the ballot. But officials say their hands are now tied by a 2013 Supreme Court decision that gutted the heart of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.As a result of that decision, in Shelby County v. Holder, the Justice Department will send observers only to jurisdictions where it already has court approval. That encompasses seven counties or jurisdictions in Alaska, California, Louisiana, and New York.
Because democrats decided to go with a Republican AG to show that they’re not ‘weak on crime’.
Ah I read the article now. Seems there may be actual legal justification in at least some cases.
Federal law is supposed to supersede state law. Although States are supposed to be free to run their elections how they choose.
This makes the whole situation a gray area that the DOJ hasn’t seemed to feel the need to clarify.
Isn’t the “legal justification” they used not including ‘Federal officers’ on their list of ‘category of persons’ allowed to be present during voting?
So they intentionally passed an (illegal) law that forbids the DOJ from overseeing the election process because oopsey daisy we totally didn’t mean to write a law that breaks the law!
But if you could honor our intentionally broken law while we’re committing the specific crimes you are here to prevent, that’d be super lawful of you.